


There Is A Light

by thestarsjustblinkforus



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Artist!Grantaire, Because of course he is, Gen, R is an ardent Smiths fan, Reincarnation fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarsjustblinkforus/pseuds/thestarsjustblinkforus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He's starting to claw his way back to himself all because of a stranger who doesn't <b>feel</b> like a stranger on a too packed train at an ungodly hour of the morning who’s like the instrumental break at the end of "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" - beautiful like frost on a bedroom window, like spun glass - and maybe he'll eventually fall down the oubliette of his depression again but right now he has this. He has gold and red and white and blue...</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It's 7:52 am on a random Wednesday in June when he sees him.

He has his headphones clamped tight over his ears as usual so his entrance is set to music like something out of a film and he's staring, he knows he's staring and it's the kind of staring where "staring" isn't even the right word. The right word is _gaping_. He's gaping and Morrissey is crooning _“everything depends upon how near you stand to me”_ , and his throat goes tight, his heart clenches because  _Christ, his colors..._

It’s the middle of summer but his skin is pale as a candle, cheeks flushed red only from running to catch the train and he imagines the veins of his wrists to be soft blue tributaries as he raises a hand to tuck a strand of gold hair behind his ear that has come loose from the haphazard bun falling apart at the nape of his neck. He cranes his to see better over the shoulder of a young woman who is also gaping and finds it’s not just gold - some strands are a dark amber, a deep honey, others nearly white-blond and they're all twisted impatiently together and _gorgeous_ and his hands have started to itch and it’s been so long since they’ve _done_ that. He doesn’t have his sketchbook because he stopped carrying it a long time ago and he’s suddenly missing it like an arm, a leg. He doesn’t even have a fucking _pencil_ or a pen or a receipt or a scrap of _anything_ to draw on and he stares helplessly, trying to memorize, trying to keep him in his mind until he can put him down on paper, can preserve his profile, that perfect sharp slope of a nose, the dark brows a divine contrast to his skin, his hair, eyelashes thick and flickering as he glances down at the phone in his hand and he wants his eyes, _he needs to know his eyes_ and something in him whispers, _blue... blue with a darker ring around the iris..._

He’s tall, taller than Grantaire if they were to stand side by side and somehow he knows his own eyes would be level with his mouth if they were facing each other... his mouth that is bowed like a woman’s with a luscious lower lip, the upper perfectly sculpted into two inverted v’s and he thinks he’s dreamt about that mouth, he’s had such _dreams_ about that mouth...

He’s wearing a red dress shirt and that same something whispers with a smirk, _of course_ , and it’s perfectly pressed, not one crease, but it’s unbuttoned at least one button lower than expected revealing the gentle curve of his collarbone disappearing beneath a crisp white undershirt and _why the fuck did he stop carrying his book..._

**_Because it went away._ **

The _need_ went _away_ and he let it, hasn’t tried to get it back, because the desertion felt like a betrayal, and _fuck art too then,_ ** _fuck_** _it._  

In the year since he sliced his last shitty canvas to shreds with a palette knife he has given in to the constant barely-held-at-bay desire to see just how low he can get without anything that might keep his head above water and the answer is _pretty fucking low_. His head always throbs these days, his hands always shake. Right now he is bleary-eyed and un-showered and he feels disgusting and perverted for even _looking_ at this man who practically glows with health and beauty and obviously excellent fucking life choices...  

He smiles down at something on his phone, a slow reveal of teeth, a small huff of breath as he laughs to himself, shakes his head and more of his hair comes free. He tucks it behind his ear again and Grantaire wants to catch his hand, wants to say _wait_...

Because he has an image in his head of the man with his hair tumbled about his shoulders, blowing in a sudden breeze and streaking across his face as he turns his head, meets his eyes and smiles the smile he is smiling now and the something in him that cracked open the moment he saw him, that small fissure has widened with every passing minute since, it’s gotten bigger and bigger, it’s become a yawning crevice right down the center of him pulsing with yearning and want and need and that strange recognition that knows the exact blue of his eyes, the timbre of his voice that he thinks would shake right through him if he were to speak now, if he were to turn his head and see him and

_Say my name..._

_Know me like I know you..._

The doors slide open and the man tucks his phone into his pocket, steps off the car and onto the platform.

Grantaire turns almost completely around in his seat to follow him through the window, _look up, look up, see me, please, please see me..._  but he keeps walking and then he’s gone, and his eyes start to burn and fuck, _fuck_ , he's not crying, he's _not_. He shuts them tight trying to imprint the man on the inside of his eyelids, trying to preserve, to _remember_ because the _need_  he thought he'd lost forever has come rushing back and his hands clench and unclench, fingers twitching for want of a pencil, a brush...

When he gets to his stop he nearly launches himself off his seat and through the doors, shoving past the crowd and taking the steps two at a time.

He runs the six blocks to the gallery, catapults through the double glass doors startling Feuilly who splashes hot coffee down his front - “Fuckssake, R!” - panting as he barrels into the private back studio where everything he needs _right now_ is. 

He pulls out a blank canvas and it’s like breathing, it’s like coming up for air. He gathers the colors, _his_ colors, from the perfectly organized drawers and he uses his fingers, his hands at first because he wants to _feel_ paint again, slippery and cold on his skin...

By the time Feuilly finds him he has raided the brushes because he’s ready to shape, to define, and he has one behind his ear, one in his pocket, one in his hand that he is holding so hard his knuckles are white, white like the man’s skin, and he needs delicacy _here_ , boldness _here_ , and he switches them, they twirl and streak through the air and Feuilly watches wordless and wide-eyed and Grantaire is smiling, he can feel it, his cheeks _hurt_ , and he can’t remember the last time he felt this good, the last time he held a brush in his hand, had paint on his clothes (so much paint on his clothes, practically pasting them to his body) and in his _hair_  and he says to Feuilly as he finishes, “I used the last of your metallic gold. Is there any more coffee?” and he kind of just slumps to the floor utterly spent, staring up at the first thing he’s painted in over a year and fuck he’s missed this.

And that something, that secret something whispers, _you’ve missed_ **_him_** _._


	2. Chapter 2

“Feuilly thinks you’re having a nervous breakdown,” Bahorel informs him as he kicks the door shut behind him and practically  _skips_  to the corner of the loft where all his shit is still set up because Bahorel wouldn’t let him pitch it all out the window months ago like he’d wanted, which, at the time, he thought was really fucking  _unfair_  because they have lost at least  _two_  tv’s that way thank you very much,  _Bahorel_ , you are no longer allowed to watch sports matches on anything that isn’t  _bolted down_ ,  _Bahorel_.

He drops his Cass Art bags onto the floor and they make a * _thunk_ * that sounds like several paychecks and  _who needs to eat anyway_ as he reaches with both hands for his easel that hasn’t been touched in so long it’s coated with a gritty layer of dust.

_Thank you for not letting me get rid of everything,_ **_Bahorel_ ** _..._

“I’m fine. I’m awesome.” 

And he is, he really really is.

"No breakdown.”

Not yet.

He grabs one of his old canvases and begins to relentlessly slap white paint over it as Bahorel lights him a cigarette and tucks it into his mouth for him while he works. He perches beside him on the radiator with one of his own and toes at a glop of fresh paint on the floor. It gleams wetly on the wood, standing out among the old splashes of color that have long since faded, the sun from the windows having beaten them down, paled them out. There’ll be new reds, new yellows, golds, blues and whites there soon and thank fuck their landlords don’t give a shit about the floors because he’s not one to be careful, he’s not one to be cautious when he’s like this. It’s why he and Bahorel are best friends. Poor self-control and a general understanding of each other’s Crazy. 

“I love this, these fucking windows. I love these fucking windows,” he mutters over the cigarette and the light is still enough to paint by late as it is and for real the windows are huge and the whole reason he wanted this place in the first place back when he cared about things like directional light. Bahorel doesn’t say anything, just smokes and watches him attack the canvas, and he’s forgotten how much he  _likes_  this, working with him quietly watching which is the only time he quietly does anything. It’s like being alone but better because he’s not.

He drops his brush with a clatter once he’s eradicated every trace of his old work and searches for one of his sketchbooks because he has to wait for the stupid canvas to  _dry_  now and he wants to keep working, he  _needs_  to keep working. He thinks the man might fade if he stops and he can’t let him because that man is the spark and he recognizes this and he’s not going to waste time questioning it, he’s just going to follow it until it burns out, he’s going to pour himself into it until he’s left empty again because that’s what he does. 

He finds the sketchbook Feuilly had given him last Christmas, pulls it out from one of the crates and gently dusts it off with the corner of his shirt. He hadn’t had the heart then to tell him he wouldn’t be using it, but he hadn’t gotten rid of it either because Feuilly had gotten it for him before his commissions came in, when he hadn’t two pence to rub together, and the paper was so soft, the burgundy leather so rich… He’d been touched. So touched he cried and then went on a shame spiral after he left the bar because Feuilly still believed in him enough to buy him this really fucking expensive book and it was just going to go to waste…

Except it’s not. Because he’s going to fill every page.

He settles himself on the floor, leaning half against the radiator and half against Bahoral’s leg as he opens it and Bahorel pats him on the head like a puppy, cigarette ash falling down between them.

“This’s good," he says taking a drag, “You’re kind of freaking me out but it’s good to see you excited about this shit again.” 

He slides his hand down the surface of the first page, smooth and soft and ready for him and he breathes deep, breathes in the smell of fresh paper and, without his asking for it, Bahorel hands him a new pencil. He starts with the man’s mouth this time, leaning in to get the dip of his upper lip just right, and Bahorel watches with his head cocked appreciatively to the side and that chipped-toothed grin that made his heart leap the first time he saw it. 

“Who’s the chick?”

And he wants to tell him,  _he’s like you and Feuilly and Eponine_ , but they’ve never talked about that. The night they met Grantaire tried but Bahorel thought he was hitting on him and when he assured him he wasn’t he got mad and asked,  _Why the fuck not?_ which lead to them making out in the last remaining phone box in London while it pissed down like a motherfucker outside. After which, Bahorel announced,  _Nope, I’m definitely not gay_ and gave him his number. Between all the concerts/drinking/smoking/drugs/unofficial fight clubs in the two years since it just never came up. And then when it happened with Feuilly he figured maybe it was just because he was meeting him through Bahorel… And Eponine… Well.  They don’t talk about the night they met. 

So he doesn’t know. 

He really doesn’t know if any of them felt that same  _something,_ that same insistent  _tug_  deep inside that said,  _pay attention_ ,  _here’s another piece of you come back._  He just knows he’s never felt it with anyone else until today. Everyone else has always just been  _people_ , but Bahorel and Feuilly and Eponine… they’re his. Like the man is his. He knows this because his colors smacked him upside the head just like Bahorel’s laugh had the night he’d decided to scam some students over a game of pool at the bar Grantaire worked at.

He had gotten a little too mouthy, gloated a little too much because he’s Bahorel and even before one of them lost it and finally chucked a bottle at him (which missed because he is a  _ninja of reflexes_  even drunk) he had been watching, his eyes drawn to the back corner where the tables and darts were. He’d spent most of the night fucking up drink orders and staring at the back of the guy’s head thinking,  _turn around, turn around_ , because that  _laugh_ … The bottle had sailed past him and he’d jerked his shoulder back, followed the motion to see the crash, and they caught each other’s eye then, both grinning like idiots, and the man had a  _chipped front tooth_  and Grantaire  _knew_ it, he  _knew_ it would be there even before he saw it. He knew it like he knew Feuilly’s handshake - the way he would clasp your wrist with his free hand, making sure you knew he  _meant_  it. He knew it like he knew what Eponine looked like with blood on her face.

He knew it like he knew the man’s eyes were blue and that he had a voice that could make your knees kiss pavement.

“I saw him on the train this morning…” Grantaire murmurs, tracing the curve of his chin, sharp like his cheekbones, like the angle of his nose. He leans forward to blow some loose graphite off the page, his lips hovering maybe too close and his heart feels too tight again like it did this morning, feels like it’s in his throat, making his eyes sting and Bahorel has gotten quiet, has stopped swinging the leg Grantaire isn’t leaning against. He tilts his head back to look up at him, banging it softly against the radiator and Bahorel snorts at that, says after a moment of studying the drawing, that grin sliding off his face, “Is he famous or something?” and Grantaire watches him carefully.

“I don’t think so…”

He shrugs after a moment and takes a final drag of his cigarette, hopping off the radiator as he grumbles about a 7pm lecture because he’s still flirting with becoming a lawyer after several years of academic half-assery.

He calls “See ya tonight, man…" over his shoulder as he heads out and Grantaire looks back down at the sketch of the man's mouth, the parted lips, the hint of teeth. He closes the book and gets to his feet, gathering what he needs from the bags and prepares.

When he is ready he turns to his newly blank canvas and reaches out. He runs his hand down it gently, intimately. 

He dips his brush in red and presses it against the skin, a stroked kiss, and he thinks he might be happy right now, he might actually be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on this tumblr prompt: http://rnckirk.tumblr.com/post/52140750125/all-i-want-is-e-r-reincarnation-fic-where-enjolras
> 
>  _“everything depends upon how near you stand to me”_ : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh2bonnjv70
> 
> Comments are more than welcome and desired to an embarrassing degree!


End file.
